Technology companies
The latest entrants into the funding scene include Luminate and Google’s Digital News Innovation Fund.
Some, such as Luminate, do not accept unsolicited offers and future grantees need to be recommended first.
Others run highly competitive calls for proposals, although the workload involved is relatively light.
Facebook, Inc. operates a social networking website. The Company website allows people to communicate with their family, friends, and coworkers. Facebook develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information, photographs, website links, and videos. Facebook users have the ability to share and restrict information based on their own specific criteria.
Funding opportunities: Facebook announced a new program to build stronger links between Facebook and the journalism industry. It will work with news organizations to develop products, to teach journalists how to be a better partner, and to work with editors and educators on how to equip people with the knowledge they need to be smart readers at the digital age.
Types of funding: Programmatic and core grants
Amount of funding: Facebook pledged to invest $100 million in 2020.
- $25 million in grant funding for local news through the Facebook Journalism Project.
- $75 million in the form of “additional marketing spend” to worldwide news organisations.
Recently, there has been the launch of a AU$15 million news fund and the expansion of Facebook News to Australia. The Facebook Australian News Fund will invest in public-interest journalism, and support regional and digital newsroom innovation and economic sustainability. The support will be provided in the form of two funds, the Newsroom Sustainability Fund and the Public Interest Journalism Fund.
Type of funding: Grants
Google News Initiative
The Google News Lab is a global team at Google whose mission it is to “collaborate with journalists and entrepreneurs to help build the future of media. Launched in 2015, the News Lab works with news organizations to help drive innovation, address industry challenges, and provide training and access to emerging technologies for reporting and storytelling.
Google News Initiative is centered around three primary goals: 1) elevating and strengthening quality journalism, 2) enabling new business models to support quality journalism, and 3) empowering news organizations to leverage technology for innovation in the newsrooms. To accomplish this, they’ve engaged with news partners to create new products, partnerships, and programs.
Geographical Priorities: Global. Funding rounds are grouped geographically into the Asia-Pacific; Middle-East, Turkey and Africa; North America; and Latin America regions.
Types of funding: Programmatic and core grants
Funding opportunities: Through rounds of regional funding, the GNI Innovation Challenges programme empowers news innovators from around the world to demonstrate new thinking in online journalism and the development of new publishing business models. In turn, Google share knowledge generated from the projects with the wider industry.
Digital News Innovation Fund: In 2015, Google launched the DNI Fund, an initiative open to publishers of all sizes in Europe that financially supported high-quality journalism through technology and innovation. The last round of funding took place in 2020. You can read the report here.
Amount of funding: $300M